Miracles, baby factories and all that

By Josef Omorotionmwan
WE SHALL rely on Webster’s’ Third New International Dictionary definition of a miracle as “an extraordinary event taken to manifest the supernatural powers of God fulfilling his purpose; and an accomplishment or occurrence so outstanding as to seem beyond human capability or endeavour”.

Essentially, when an ordinary situation turns extraordinary, it becomes miraculous. A situation in which state governors who voluntarily entered into a union cannot decide who leads them is, to say the least, preposterous.

The governors went into an election. The electoral officer who should announce the result of the election duly declared Governor Chibuike Amaechi as the winner of the election. A day later, a whole Governor who had voted on the Jonathan (oops, I mean Jang) side, came up with a different result, touting the list of people who had earlier signed an undertaking to support Jang as superseding the actual votes cast.

This transcends into the realm of miracle because if this goes into 2015, election results would be announced before the election day. Promises obtained on campaign trips would be superior to the actual votes in the ballot boxes.

We are reluctant to accept the idea of positive miracle as canvassed by some Nigerians who are quick to point to the marvelous job that Professor Augustine Orhue and his team are doing at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, UBTH, under the Assisted Reproduction Technology, ART. Their work is science-based and backed by several years of profound research. Today’s essay is dedicated to this group, which has, by dint of hard work, given hope to the hopeless; and still striving to produce fertility in every woman, even those hitherto confirmed barren. This is science in action!

We have been trying hard to distinguish between miracle and magic. When we were growing up here in Benin City, we used to go to Ring Road to watch magicians perform. Sometimes, some of the itinerant magicians also moved to rural areas where they asked people to “come and see American wonder”. Today, these magicians are no longer around.

In the main, they may have migrated into churches.

We may never know the number of moral idiots who have perished with their faith, believing in miracles. There is the case of a pastor who lived in the ghetto. At midnight, armed robbers came calling. He opened his door and went to confront them only with a big Bible in his hand. They shot him dead and left.

There is one hospital in town where they did not believe in blood transfusion. At a time, dead bodies were being reeled out of the hospital by the hour. We believe in miracles and in the efficacy of prayers but miracle is not everything. All the same, when sickness strikes, people should pray and still see an appropriate doctor.

Miracle baby factories are springing up everywhere. Every aspect of these baby factories is suspect and dubious. Very gory stories are told of how they obtain their cargoes through conscripted and trafficked girls who are put in concentration camps of sorts from where babies are extracted from them for sale.

People go there to register and obtain babies for various reasons. The stake and patronage are now so high that people go to register for fetuses in the womb in just the same way that people from the North go round our villages, buying up fruits on the orange and pear trees when they are beginning to produce.

For barren couples who desperately want children, all they need is enough discipline and patience to hide away from their immediate environment for some nine months, after which they emerge with bouncing babies.

All that matters here is that these people are enabled to avert the entire stigma associated with barrenness. From day one, the feeding bottle comes to the rescue as the nine months of their hide away cannot induce breast milk.

This is not the best because there is no telling how much care can be given to a child acquired under private treaty as compared to the one obtained in an open adoption known to everybody.

All the same, it is still better than those cases where people with clandestine motives go to the factories to obtain babies for slavery or rituals. They can do with the babies or their completely knocked-down parts, CKP, what they please. This is a sin against the Holy Ghost.

Where the carcass is, we are told, there the vultures go. What we find most intriguing in all this, is the African touch. Here at home, miracles are pouring out of our churches in their thousands daily, even where the miracles of Jesus Christ were few and far apart.

Wherever it is happening, look closely and you will see some Africaness to it. Last summer, the British media were awash with the escapades of Miracle Pastor Mbenga of the Victorious Pentecostal Assembly, Hyde Road, Gorton, who kept ripping people off with his claim that his blessed blackcurrant and olive oil could cure serious illnesses, including cancer, HIV and diabetes.

In far way Zimbabwe, Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa, founder, UnitedFamilyInternationalChurch, UFIC, was the pastor whose prayer brought a baby boy to Mr. and Mrs. Moffat after three days of pregnancy – Mrs. Moffat became miraculously pregnant on 15 November and delivered on 18 November 2012.

These church magicians are sharp-witted. You will be surprised how easily they compare themselves with Christ. Hear one of them: “Have you found out where the fish and bread that Jesus multiplied came from? How do you expect me to explain the chemical composition of a miracle?”

Towards the final part of the last century, India took a quantum leap from crudity to refinement, hence we can now dispatch our cancer patients there for healing. So comfortably are we occupying the magic slot India left behind! In literature, this is the unwilling suspension of disbelief. Quite pathetic, isn’t it?